U.S. Sen. Mark Udall’s attempts to distance himself from President Obama and the White House are getting laughs.

A day after President Obama’s remarks on Islamic terrorists, CNN’s John King poked fun of the Colorado Democrat’s statement on the speech in King’s show “Inside Politics.”

“As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, I believe any expanded U.S. military role beyond airstrikes in the fight against ISIL in Iraq must be approved by Congress,” Udall said. “The American people must be assured that we are not pursuing another open-ended conflict in the Middle East, and I will not give this president — or any other president — blank check to begin another land war in Iraq.”

King said the problem with the Democratic senator getting in the face of the Democratic president is that Obama has said “he doesn’t want to put boots on the ground.”

A CNN documentary on the Nathan Dunlap capital punishment case is set to air Sunday after making headlines in Colorado last week. That’s when a yet-to-be-aired interview with Gov. John Hickenlooper surfaced, and in it he suggested he could grant the convicted killer clemency.

Gov. John Hickenlooper made his position on the death penalty clear in a Sunday TV interview. (Lewis Geyer/Times-Call)

The episode of “Death Row Stories” is scheduled to premier at 8 p.m. Mountain time on the television news channel.

The governor’s campaign said Hickenlooper’s comments during the CNN interview do not represent any altering in Hickenlooper’s sentiments from a May 2013 indefinite reprieve he granted to Dunlap.

In the CNN interview, Hickenlooper said he didn’t want the Dunlap case to become a “political football” and that “We won’t let that happen.” Hickenlooper told CNN it would be “unacceptable” for anyone to make the death penalty — specifically the Dunlap case — into a campaign point.

Moments after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall appeared in an interview on CNN.

Udall, who is up for re-election in November, as of late has seen diminished poll numbers — which can, on some fronts, be attributed to the troubled rollout late last year of the Affordable Care Act.

When asked on CNN if the president is a liability for him here in Colorado, the senior senator evaded the question.

“When the president comes to Colorado and talks about our all the above energy approach — we’ve got lots of natural gas, solar power, that resonates with Coloradans,” said Udall, who went on to talk about veterans and women voters.

But does that mean you’re going to campaign side-by-side with the president?

“We’re going to be running a strong campaign based on Colorado’s interest and Colorado’s future,” said Udall, again brushing aside the question.

News from a Bureau of Labor and Statistics survey that Colorado’s non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dipped to 7.6 percent in September (the lowest percentage seen in two years), is sure to have politicos talking as we’re now just a year out from Election Day 2012.

“It’s the economy stupid,” become a popular phrase used by Democratic strategist James Carville (now a CNN political contributor) when he worked on then-candidate Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

So does it still apply in 2012 — especially here in this Rocky Mountain swing state?

“Yes, because perception that the economy is improving helps,” said Floyd Ciruli, a local political analyst. “People know that the recovery is sluggish, but they want to see improvement.”

Someone’s likely to feel insulted: CNN’s John King referred to former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter as a Republican. Three times.

Ritter, of course, is a Democrat first elected in 2006. From the start, he was under constant attack by Republicans, who claimed he was ineffective. Ritter fans said the barbs were intended to help Republicans win back the governor’s mansion. Ritter opted not to run for re-election, but Democrats still kept the governor’s mansion.

King interviewed Gov. John Hickenlooper Tuesday about President Obama’s re-election chances. A transcript of the interview was posted today on RealClearPolitics:

KING: Your predecessor, the Republican, former Republican Governor Bill Ritter says a repeat of 2008 is very unlikely. I’d say he’s looking at a high wire act here. You say it would be close. Do you basically agree with the former Republican governor?

In the home stretch of tight political races, it gets harder to pick winners based on the polls. But the guessing is made a bit easier by what history tells us about the behavior of undecided voters, whose last-minute decisions can make all the difference.

Take the Senate race in Colorado, where Republican challenger Ken Buck either holds a slim lead or is in a dead heat, depending on the survey. The fact that he is neck-and-neck with an incumbent, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, actually is a reason for him to be optimistic, because of how undecided voters tend to break at the end.

(“Quinnipiac,” by the way, is a word your Spotted This Morning correspondent just loves to type and to say out loud. How can you not admire the way it builds, crests and resolves?)

Ken Buck and Michael Bennet ran into each other outside the Fox news studios early this morning. The campaigns say they shook hands and congratulated each other. (Photo courtesy of the Bennet campaign)

Results of CNN polls released today show Republican Ken Buck and Democrat Michael Bennet locked in a tight race for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat.

In a telephone survey of of 860 likely Colorado voters conducted Sept. 17-21, 49 percent supported Buck, the Weld County District Attorney, and 44 percent supported Bennet, the former Denver schools chief who was appointed to the seat in 2009. The result was within the poll’s +/- 3.5 percent margin of sampling error.

“Bennet’s problem is that his support disappears the further you get from Denver. Bennet has a huge lead in Denver and Boulder, but the race is close in the Denver suburbs. Move further along the Front Range – the strip of fast-growing communities that strech out along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains – and Buck’s lead widens to 18 points. Buck also has a 20-point lead in the rest of the state.”

Telephone polling of 1,334 registered voters in the same time frame showed Bennet with 47 percent support and Buck with 44 percent. Again the result is within the survey’s margin of sampling error, this time +/- 2.5 percent.

How to explain the difference? Here’s Holland’s take:

“As in most midterms, higher turnout helps Democrats and lower turnout helps Republicans,” says Holland. “Add to that the fact that Republicans are now the party that is fired up and ready to go and the result is a group of likely voters that in most states is much more Republican than the larger pool of registered voters.”

In the three-ring governor’s race, the poll is the latest to show Democrat John Hikckenlooper with a sizeable lead over Republican Dan Maes and American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo, a former Republican congressman who launched a third-party bid because he said Maes could not win a general election, edges the Evergreen businessman among both likely and registered voters. As with other polls, Hickenlooper’s support remains below 50 percent.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.